A man is organising four pints of amber liquid on a table. It’s enjoyably disorientating as we shuffle into the performance space from the larger pub area, taking a moment to click that this impatience and attention to detail is setting the scene in the back room around us, immersing us as we sticky beak on the engagements that are about to unfold in this debut comic drama play.
Greg, Kevin and Sophie are the three members of a local group that believe that the Earth is flat. ‘Do Your Own Research’ – the homemade banner behind them proclaims emphatically, in a ‘wake up sheeple’ kind of manner, convinced that if everyone who sees it took to the Internet they too would have the scales fall from their eyes about this spherical globe conspiracy. Writer James Callás Ball has done some excellent research, deep-diving into various contemporary details and historical roots behind flat-Earth beliefs. So much so, that the subject is allowed to fall into being a colourful backdrop to the real story of the dynamic between the three characters, written and delivered with humour and pathos.
The tryptic of the three characters is a careful balance of uneven friendships, needs, and unspoken desires, awaiting to be up-ended and exposed. Robert Cohen’s Greg is almost Pinteresque in his combination of tight control and the fractious comic relief he brings, skilfully portrayed to hint at an unhappiness bubbling underneath. John Black delivers a believable and fresh performance as the relative ingenue Kevin, open to these outlandish ideas and wanting to cut through the red tape of the minutiae that Greg gets such security from. Completing the group is Sophie, the heart of the trio, who is gracefully portrayed by Valerie Antwi, opening her mind even further to challenge the dogma from a place of a true curious disciple.
James Callás Ball’s enjoyable debut play reminds us that fake news is in no way a recent concept restricted to orange Americans. Even more importantly it keeps the humanity of its characters front and centre, with laughs and loves and moments of desperation included alongside their flag-waving difference in ideology.
Laughing Horse @ The Walrus (Hideaway), 24 May 2024, 2pm (Also running May 25 & 26
https://www.brightonfringe.org/events/the-flat-earthers/
